I wrote the October LSAT and practiced with all the new pt's. I decided to rework them after a month long break from any pt's but have been giving myself 30 minutes inside noisy coffee shops in order to compensate for anything I may have remembered. Have any of you guys tried cutting the time limit down to 30 minutes per section? I feel like it can definitely help me on gameday with the idea being that 35 minutes will feel like a luxury. Also, everything definitely felt faster on gameday in comparison to any pt I'd ever taken up until that point.

Hey rht, I also sat for the Oct 2010 exam. I practiced for hours on end (lost my job in August so it gave me plenty of time!) inside a noisy coffee shop as well. I'm not sure what I think of that strategy. I went from 165-169 PTs to a 157 on game day. I highly doubt my coffeshop studying was the culprit, but looking back, I'm wondering if maybe it wouldn't have been better to have given myself a quiet study environment to simulate the actual test day. I'm no psychologist but perhaps I got *so* used to practicing problems inside a coffee shop that my brain learned to function WITH all that noise!

Okay, as you can see, I really have no scientific grounds for my observations, so who knows. Just my two cents.

I progressively cut my time limit from 35 to 33 to 32 minute sections. 3 minutes is good enough to practice with I say. I aim to finish a section in 30 minutes. Setting my watch two minutes ahead makes it so that if I finish before the red band on the LSAT watch = 30 minutes.

Its usefulness depends on a lot of things. If you can consistently finish every section without any guessing within 30 minutes, then maybe it's a good idea. Otherwise, it's not.

Here's why: If you typically don't finish or finish close to the time limit anyway (e.g. games for me), then doing 30 minute sections tends to make you complacent with not finishing sections, or with guessing on bunches of questions, which is not good. You should learn to pace yourself to answer every question correctly in 35 minutes.

Also, it's not good because you need to learn to work efficiently, especially on games, after you hear the 5-minute warning. So you need to be working with an actual or simulated LSAT proctor, such as LSAT Cacophony, which includes this.

I made the mistake of not doing this the first time, and I froze after the 5-minute warning on almost ever section in October. Cost me nearly 9 points (2 LR, 2 RC, and 5 LG).

aesis wrote:I progressively cut my time limit from 35 to 33 to 32 minute sections. 3 minutes is good enough to practice with I say. I aim to finish a section in 30 minutes. Setting my watch two minutes ahead makes it so that if I finish before the red band on the LSAT watch = 30 minutes.

This is all ideal of course, but it's boosted my confidence TREMENDOUSLY.

If timing is your main/only issue, I definitely think working with 32 (or 30 or 33) minute sections to adjust for the time-moving-faster-on-test-day phenomenon is helpful. I actually did slightly better than my average pt the day of, and I felt getting used to 8 minutes per game and reading section helped tremendously.

Personally, I try to train using all 35 minutes. Occasionally I will finish an LR in 30 or an LG in 25, but usually I use all the time. If I don't use all the time, I either walk around or relax my brain the remainder of the section or just go through and prove correct answers, maybe look at some ones I was a little unsure about. With LG usually once you're done, you're done. But I'm just trying to simulate real testing circumstances, and what I would do with that time left over. I would say, if you are having problems with pacing, maybe restricting time for a few sections may help you (get you used to reading faster in RC or whatever). If you generally never run out of time, then you don't have pacing issues, and there probably isn't a benefit to shortening your time. You'd be better focusing your time on accuracy, and other than that, just setting benchmarks within your section (i.e., first ten of LR done in ten minutes, first two LG games in 15 minutes, etc) to make sure you have a little extra time for the hard questions. Don't rob yourself of time if accuracy is your problem.

dont take it in a noisy coffee shop. On the actual test day, it wont get that loud. Sure there will be sniffling, coughing, sneezing, and heavy breathing, but it wont be that loud. The actual loudness can be comparable to a library ( not the quiet study areas). Practice there, and learn how to tune the noises out. On game day for me in October, I managed to tune out every bit of noise, and just focused on the exam. You will begin to go into a zone and forget about everyone else in the room.

All of this can be done by doing a good amount of prep tests in a public library. dont go to teh coffee shop, as that is not a good indicator of the actual testing environment.

If you can, take a prep test or 2 in the actual classroom you are going to take the exam in 10 days. that way you will be used to the desks, and environment.